How would you change the US constitution?

[cmkeller]

Mr. Candidate, are you in favor of this, or opposed to it?

“Yes.”

Sounds like most politicians today.

[Psycho_Pirate]

@MaxTheVool

Yes, many (but not all) of the people who founded this country were Christian. I hade to sound snide, but… so what?

SNIP

I don’t necessarily agree that we should make a big deal about it. But you are the one who asked “what religious heritage?”. I’m just fighting your ignorance.

[Bytegeist]

@cmkeller

Mr. Candidate, are you in favor of this, or opposed to it?

“Yes.”

Sounds like most politicians today.

Agreed.

Personally, I can’t wait to ask, “Will you answer No to this question?”

[BrainGlutton]

Here’s what I’d do:

1. Abolish the Senate; devolve all its powers and functions on the House of Representatives. In addition to eliminating the undemocratic malapportionment of power the Senate represents, this would strengthen the legislative branch as against the executive branch, by streamlining its decisionmaking process. See these threads: “Should the United States Senate be abolished?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=181890 And “Which is better: A one-house legislature, or a two-house legislature?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=254557

2. Elect the House of Representatives by the multimember district form of proportional representation. This encourages the emergence of a multiparty system while still retaining the principle of geographic representation (and the viability of porkbarrel ). See these threads: “What do you think about proportional representation in the U.S. House of Reps?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=261571 “A multiparty system is better than a two-party system!” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=269169&highlight=multiparty And “Should the U.S. adopt alternative, pro-multipartisan voting systems?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=170368

3. Abolish the Electoral College. Elect the president by direct popular vote using the instant-runoff voting method, which allows third-party candidates to compete without acting as “spoilers.” See this thread: “Instant-runoff voting: avoiding the third-party “spoiler” problem” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=261969

4. Create a separately elected fourth branch of government, a “Tribunate,” to police the other three, and also to take over all “metagovernmental” functions such as running the elections; the Tribunate to be run by a board of ten tribunes elected by the party-list form of PR; each tribune to have independent investigative powers, but prosecutorial powers to be exercised by the ten tribunes collectively. See this thread: "A fourth branch of government: The Tribunate " – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=264462

And, just for fun . . .

5. Empower Congress to redraw state boundaries, abolish states, merge/consolidate states, create new states, without consent of the state governments affected. See this thread: “Do we really need fifty states?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=239981

[BrainGlutton]

@Bytegeist

Personally, I can’t wait to ask, “Will you answer No to this question?”

“Probably.”

[BrainGlutton]

6. Provide for amendment of the Constitution by national referendum, on 2/3 vote of Congress.

7. Provide for a new Constitutional Convention every 20 years, its delegates to be elected by the same method as the House of Representatives (multi-member district PR), but sitting members of Congress not eligible to run. The Convention would be empowered to draft a whole new Constitution or just propose amendments. All proposal of the Convention would be submitted to a national referendum.

[MaxTheVool]

@Psycho Pirate

I don’t necessarily agree that we should make a big deal about it. But you are the one who asked “what religious heritage?”. I’m just fighting your ignorance.

Ahh, I see what you’re saying. But, to be weasely and Clintonian, that depends on what you mean by “heritage”.

As in, this country definitely has a British heritage, in that the country was originally a British colony. That’s a direct heritage.

This country also has a French heritage, in that we’ve had a lot of contact with France over the years, it helped us out in the war of independence (a LOT), our revolution inspired their revolution, etc. But that’s more of an indirect heritage.
I see our religious heritage has being more like the second than like the first. Yes, a lot of people involved in founding our country were religious, but they didn’t Found A Religious Country.

(You could make a better argument that the American People, as a culture/society, have a direct religious heritage.)

[Evil_Captor]

@MEBuckner

Moderator’s Note: Evil Captor, you are not permitted to call other posters “putzes” in Great Debates. Don’t do that again.

Whoops, so I did. Won’t do that again. Sorry, Psycho Pirate, the putz smiley was unwarranted there and I don’t know how it got in there. I don’t even like the term.
Must have done it by accident somehow.

[stop-1]

…which is as far as I understand is able to be amended. Sorry to stray somewhat from the thread but I am most offended by rubbish in the ‘declaration of independence’ which seems to be held sacrocant (by those not in power - not those who have power). I speak of the nonsense ‘born equal in the eye of god’ (or is that eyes? - can’t remember).
It is a pity that this ‘declaration of independence’ is seen as holy. Ah well, that’s ‘manifest destiny’ for you.

[Zoe]

[quote]
Psycho Pirate: My guess is he is referring to the fact that this country was settled by deeply religious people…**

Children of the Sun Gods?

[Bytegeist]

@stop-1

Sorry to stray somewhat from the thread but I am most offended by rubbish in the ‘declaration of independence’ which seems to be held sacrocant (by those not in power - not those who have power). I speak of the nonsense ‘born equal in the eye of god’ (or is that eyes? - can’t remember).
It is a pity that this ‘declaration of independence’ is seen as holy. Ah well, that’s ‘manifest destiny’ for you.

:dubious: :dubious: :dubious:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”

One man’s rubbish is another man’s delicacy, I suppose. Seems to me like a perfectly good inspiration for founding a country, as these things go. I wouldn’t change a word of it.

By the way, Manifest Destiny came later, in the 19th Century, as a home-grown justification for conquering our portion of the continent. I wouldn’t try very hard to defend that particular belief. Nevertheless, it had nothing to do with the Declaration of Independence or the men who wrote it.

[zenith]

IMHO, laws are written to be as complex and confusing as possible because the Constitution allows active lawyers to become legislators: Forbid anyone who has been employed as as a lawyer or a judge within the past 10 years from being a legislator; in the hopes that this lessens the present tendency in national and state legislatures towards " lawyer job security".
I hope that once we’ve gotten rid of tax lawyers feathering their law partners’ nests we can finally have an uncomplicated income tax system.

I also like the mid-term vote of confidence idea and the referendum idea and would add recall of officials of all 3 branches of government to those.

[BrainGlutton]

@stop-1

…which is as far as I understand is able to be amended. Sorry to stray somewhat from the thread but I am most offended by rubbish in the ‘declaration of independence’ which seems to be held sacrocant (by those not in power - not those who have power). I speak of the nonsense ‘born equal in the eye of god’ (or is that eyes? - can’t remember).

What is the “rubbish”? The declaration of fundamental human equality, or the hypocrisy of such a pronouncement being made by a slaveholding nation?

[Little_Nemo]

I meant recognizing that, from the New England colonists to their Founding Fathers/Framers descendants, they held to belief in a Creator God, Jesus as at least a Major Teacher from God, the Bible as a darn good source of moral wisdom & cultural heritage, and a fair afterlife of rewards & punishments (Franklin & Jefferson both concurred to that much), and that public structures & forums & persons don’t have to be stripped of any references to that minimal consensus.

Here’s some things Franklin had to say about religion:

When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.

The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason: The Morning Daylight appears plainer when you put out your Candle.

I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies.

Many a long dispute among divines may be thus abridged: It is so; It is not so. It is so; it is not so.

If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish Church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. These found it wrong in the bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England.

Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.

This Political Description of a Hypocrite, may (for ought I know) be taken for a new Doctrine by some of your Readers; but let them consider, that a little Religion, and a little Honesty, goes a great way in Courts. ‘Tis not inconsistent with Charity to distrust a Religious Man in Power, tho’ he may be a good Man; he has many Temptations “to propagate publick Destruction for Personal Advantages and Security:” And if his Natural Temper be covetous, and his Actions often contradict his pious Discourse, we may with great Reason conclude, that he has some other Design in his Religion besides barely getting to Heaven.

But the most dangerous Hypocrite in a Common-Wealth, is one who leaves the Gospel for the sake of the Law: A Man compounded of Law and Gospel, is able to cheat a whole Country with his Religion, and then destroy them under Colour of Law: And here the Clergy are in great Danger of being deceiv’d, and the People of being deceiv’d by the Clergy, until the Monster arrives to such Power and Wealth, that he is out of the reach of both, and can oppress the People without their own blind Assistance.

And it is a sad Observation, that when the People too late see their Error, yet the Clergy still persist in their Encomiums on the Hypocrite; and when he happens to die for the Good of his Country, without leaving behind him the Memory of one good Action, he shall be sure to have his Funeral Sermon stuff’d with Pious Expressions which he dropt at such a Time, and at such a Place, and on such an Occasion; than which nothing can be more prejudicial to the Interest of Religion, nor indeed to the Memory of the Person deceas’d. The Reason of this Blindness in the Clergy is, because they are honourably supported (as they ought to be) by their People, and see nor feel nothing of the Oppression which is obvious and burdensome to every one else."

Indeed, when religious people quarrel about religion, or hungry people quarrel about victuals, it looks as if they had not much of either among them.

Jefferson had even more to say on the subject:

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to my god and myself alone.

I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.

May it {the Declaration of Independence} be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.

From the dissensions among Sects themselves arise necessarily a right of choosing and necessity of deliberating to which we will conform. But if we choose for ourselves, we must allow others to choose also, and so reciprocally, this establishes religious liberty.

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.

No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvres to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.

Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the “wall of separation between church and state,” therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.

Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle.

Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.

A short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandising their oppressors in Church and State; that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man, has been adulterated and sophisticated by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves; that rational men not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, they raise the hue and cry of infidelity, while themselves are the greatest obstacles to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do in fact constitute the real Anti-Christ.

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purposes.

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a censor morum over each other.

No man {should} be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor {should he} be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor … otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief … All men {should} be free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and … the same {should} in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.

We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church.

The proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right.

If anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and contrary to the public peace, let it be punished in the same manner and no otherwise than as if it had happened in a fair or market.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must approve the homage of reason rather than of blind-folded fear. Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences… If it end in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise and in the love of others it will procure for you.

If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D’Alembert, D’Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God.

On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.

I am not afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain.

I have ever judged of the religion of others by their lives… It is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read. By the same test the world must judge me. But this does not satisfy the priesthood. They must have a positive, a declared assent to all their interested absurdities. My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolt those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there.

If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, “that this would be the best of worlds if there were no religion in it.”

The priests of the different religious sects … dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight, and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subdivision of the duperies on which they live.

To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise … without plunging into the fathomless abyss of dreams and phantasms. I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies.

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

It is between fifty and sixty years since I read the Apocalypse, and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy, nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams… what has no meaning admits no explanation.

We find in the writings of his biographers … a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications. (Referring to Jesus and the Gospels.)

That sect had presented for the object of their worship, a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust. (Referring to the Old Testament.)

It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticism that three are one and one is three, and yet, that the one is not three, and the three not one… But this constitutes the craft, the power, and profits of the priests. Sweep away their gossamer fabrics of fictitious religion, and they would catch no more flies.

In our Richmond there is much fanaticism, but chiefly among the women. They have their night meetings and prayer parties, where, attended by their priests, and sometimes by a hen-pecked husband, they pour forth the effusions of their love to Jesus, in terms as amatory and carnal, as their modesty would permit them to use a mere earthly lover.

[BobLibDem]

My first preference would be to split the US up into republics similar to those in the Nine Nations of North America. Misadventures such as Iraq wouldn’t be possible with just one or two of the American republics, a broad consensus would be needed to send troops off to battle. This consensus might be quite easy in the event of a Pearl Harbor event, and more difficult to build on dubious claims based on faulty intelligence. The Bible Belters could go ahead and outlaw abortion, urban republics might actually get sensible gun controls. Areas of the US currently subsidized by the rest of the nation would have to pay their own freight.

If amending the Constitution for the present republic, I would do this:

1. No person shall be discriminated against because of race, religion, nationality, pigmentation, sex, age, gender, marital status, or sexual preferences.

2. All citizens except convicted felons shall have the right to purchase and own guns appropriate for hunting and handguns for self defense. Weaponry appropriate only for military use shall not be available to the public.

[foolsguinea]

magellan01, while a lot of the things you propose are interesting ideas as laws, I think most need not be, & should not be, Constitutional Amendments.

BrainGlutton, you at least get what a Const. Amendment is for. And thank you for making me look the enlightened conservative I really am.

[magellan01]

@foolsguinea

magellan01, while a lot of the things you propose are interesting ideas as laws, I think most need not be, & should not be, Constitutional Amendments.

Right you are. I had the opportunity to become a founder and I turned into an Emperor. Guess I let the power go to my head.

[BrainGlutton]

@Debaser

Nope. Any honest appraisement of the situation shows that religion is becomming more repressed while secularism grows in power in the US.

On what do you base that assessment?

[BrainGlutton]

@MaxTheVool

The problem facing third parties right now is that, particularly with the extreme polarization between the two major parties, anyone who is considering voting for a third party candidate has to choose between voting for the candidate they want to vote for, and voting for a candidate who might actually win. This means that almost no one votes for third party candidates, and when they do, they get accused of stealing votes away from one of the major candidates, and then everyone sees that no third party candidates got votes, so the third party continues to be unimportant, and the cycle continues. No one votes for them because they can’t win, and they can’t win because no one votes for them. Vicious cycle.

Imagine a system in which each voter didn’t just vote for a single candidate, but rather listed a first choice and a second choice. So (to use the obvious example), Floridians in 2000 could have listed Ralph Nader as their first choice and Gore as their second choice. Then if Nader didn’t have enough votes, he’d be eliminated as an option, and then those votes would all go to Gore. And note that then there might be a lot more people who’d be willing to vote for Nader first, actually preferring him, knowing that their vote for Gore would still count.

What you’re describing is called “instant-runoff voting.” See post #84. See also http://www.instantrunoff.com/.

[BrainGlutton]

@foolsguinea

BrainGlutton, you at least get what a Const. Amendment is for. And thank you for making me look the enlightened conservative I really am.

I note your first proposal was for a separately elected attorney general – presumably so the AG would be politically independent of the Administration and therefore entirely free to investigate/prosecute corruption in the executive branch (is there any other reason?). I’m thinking along the same lines with my “Tribunate.” Only I want it to be a board of 10, elected by PR, on the assumption that the different political parties and camps have very different ideas of what constitutes government “abuse” and all of those should get a fair hearing; and to insure that every elected official, regardless of party, comes under the scrutiny of a tribune from an opposed party. A single elected AG might give a free pass to Congresscritters of his/her own party.